Swim Deep have announced their fourth studio album ‘There’s A Big Star Outside…’ – listen to new single ‘How Many Love Songs Have Died In Vegas?’ below.
The Birmingham band are due to release the 10-track record on June 7 via Submarine Cat Records (pre-order/pre-save here). Following on from 2019’s ‘Emerald Classics’, the forthcoming collection was produced by Bill Ryder-Jones (Yard Act, The Wytches).
Arriving today (February 21), the gentle and heartfelt ‘How Many Love Songs…’ delves into the “deep self-examination” frontman Austin ‘Ozzy’ Williams has undertaken in recent years. It is accompanied by a vintage-looking official video, directed and filmed by Luca Bailey.
A description reads: “The news of [Williams’] impending fatherhood led him to think about his own childhood, and the broken marriage of his parents and how that affected him and his relationships today.”
In a statement, Williams explained: ‘How Many Love Songs In Vegas?’ is a song that’s been stitched together over a few years, a great melody made in a shed (like all the good ones are) that never found its song. Until Swim Deep’s Lord saviour Bill Ryder-Jones insisted we persist with it as it was ‘dead good’.”
He continued: “We tried everything, and even after going full Flaming Lips at the Wacky Warehouse on it, still, nothing felt perfect… until we sat back, drank some gin and listened to Yo La Tengo & Red House Painters. And suddenly it clicked, Bill saw the light and I followed him like I would off a cliff.”
The singer went on to describe ‘How Many Love Songs…’ as “a song I wrote after pondering whether marriage was ill fated, and statistically doomed, just like my parents and all my friend’s parents’ ones seemed to turn out”
Williams added: “An anxiety-laced love song in which I deny all of those odds stacked against me and my wife, the best person ever.”
☆ ≈ Gleaming with excitement and pride to announce our fourth album ‘There’s a Big Star Outside’ will be out 07/06/24 ≈ ☆
The first single ‘How Many Love Songs Have Died In Vegas?’ Is out now 💫
Please pre order the album (link in bio), where you get early access to tickets pic.twitter.com/z2s91JUlO8— SWIM DEEP ≈ (@SWIM_DEEP) February 21, 2024
The full tracklist for ‘There’s A Big Star Outside…’ is as follows:
1. ‘How Many Love Songs Have Died In Vegas?’
2. ‘Very Heaven’
3. ‘These Words’
4. ‘Robin’
5. ‘Don’t Make Me A Stranger’
6. ‘First Song’
7. ‘Big Star’
8. ‘It’s Just Sun In Your Eyes’
9. ‘So Long, So Far (Marble-Bellied Baby)’
10. ‘Fire Surrounds’
Swim Deep are set to embark on a UK headline tour in support of the album this June. Tickets go on general sale at 10am GMT this Friday (February 23) – you’ll be able to buy yours here. Alternatively, a pre-sale is live now.
Swim Deep’s 2024 UK tour dates are:
JUNE:
04 – Deaf Institute, Manchester
05 – Bodega, Nottingham
06 – Hare And Hounds, Birmingham
07 – Rough Trade, Bristol
08 – Bootleg Social, Blackpool
11 – Papillon, Southampton
12 – Bullingdon, Oxford
13 – Village Underground, London
14 – Key Club, Leeds
15 – Think Tank, Newcastle
16 – Mash House, Edinburgh
Back in 2022, Swim Deep shared a five-track EP titled ‘Familiarise Yourself With Your Closest Exit’. Speaking to NME prior to its release, Willams explained that more new music was on the horizon.
“Me and Cav [McCarthy, bass] were saying to each that the songs that we were writing – which I plan to be album four – were born out of this pure naivety and from us meeting up because we wanted to meet up as friends, and the instruments were in the room,” he said.